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“That definitely sounds like it’s worth investigating.” He saw the flicker of relief in her eyes and was glad he could finally offer her some hope. Her kitchen was neatly laid out and he found everything he needed for the coffee. When it was made, he placed a cup in front of Katrina. “Where do you keep your bowls and dog food?”
“There’s a storage box outside the back door. You’ll find everything you need in there.”
As soon as Spencer stepped outside, Holly and Dobby came bounding up and sat beside the box Katrina had mentioned. Boris, strolling over at a more leisurely pace, seemed to give him a questioning glance.
“I know what you’re thinking.” Spencer opened the box and took out three bowls. There was a large airtight tub of dog food and he read the label with approval. It looked like Katrina only bought the best products for her pets. “This could all go horribly wrong.”
Two of the bowls were helpfully labeled with Holly and Dobby’s names, and marks to indicate the level of their food. Since he had a good idea of how much to feed Boris, he was able to estimate the amount to give him. Once the dogs were all nudging each other out of the way and happily eating from any bowl they chose, Spencer went back inside.
Katrina was sitting where he’d left her with her gaze fixed on the window, one hand fidgeting with her cell. Her coffee remained untouched. The weight of his duty to this woman he barely knew hit him in that moment. He had a professional obligation to solve this case and ensure she was safe, but his responsibility to her went deeper and was more personal. After everything he’d been through in the past, the connection he felt should scare him, particularly as he had doubts about her emotional state.
What surprised him was that when he looked at her, none of that mattered. The initial attraction he’d felt for her had grown into a stronger bond that nothing, not his past or her potential vulnerability, could dent. Could he allow himself to explore that? He’d become so used to shutting himself down from the idea of another relationship that his thoughts automatically shied away from the suggestion. All he knew for sure was that he wanted to help Katrina.
And right now, that meant supporting her in a practical way.
“I’m craving burritos. If I order Mexican food, will you join me?” He picked up his coffee from the counter and came to sit at the table. “I hate eating alone.”
A slight smile flitted across her face. “That must make living on your own a problem.”
He grinned. “Boris is good company, but I prefer the human kind.”
She laughed and the sound warmed a point in the center of his chest. “Since it’s a favor to you, I guess I could manage some enchiladas.”
He reached for his cell phone. “And maybe share some nachos?”
“Sharing sounds good.”
She was right. For the first time in as long as he could remember, sharing sounded wonderful.
Chapter 7
Later that night, Katrina was lying awake wondering why, among the many things that should be occupying her thoughts, Spencer’s nearness had become the most important. She had gotten used to the idea early in life that she was on her own. Her mom and sister had been a tight little unit, excluding her because she didn’t understand their choices, dramas and later their shared addictions. She’d had no choice. If anyone had asked her, she’d have said she liked it that way.
Now there was a man she barely knew sleeping a few yards away, and a new dog sharing the already overcrowded dog beds in the kennel. And it felt...okay. More than that. It felt right.
Until this point, her relationships with men had been superficial. She’d dated a few times, but always retreated if things started getting serious. Katrina understood why that was and, if she’d ever experienced an occasional pang of regret when she observed the deeper relationships that other people enjoyed, it had been fleeting. Trust was a basic requirement when it came to commitment.
Yeah. I don’t do that.
So why did her feelings toward Spencer confuse her so much? From the moment she’d met him, he had made her feel secure. That alone made him different from any other man she’d known. Was security the same as trust? How could she tell, when she had never known what trust looked like?
Born to a teenage mom, she and Eliza had never known their dad. Mollie Perry had never had any hesitation about telling her daughters that she didn’t know who he was.
“Could have been any guy in the bar that night.” Mollie would switch to a familiar refrain. “If I hadn’t been so drunk, I would’ve been careful. You think I wanted to be stuck with a couple of babies when I was only a kid myself?”
Growing up in the shadow of their mom’s issues had been tough. Mollie’s parents had given their daughter as much help as they could. Despite her grandparents’ love and support, Katrina, older by three minutes, had always felt responsible for her younger fraternal twin. Sweet and pretty, but vulnerable, Eliza was a mirror image to Mollie. Living with a sibling and a mom who both had addictive personalities, and who could turn any situation into a drama, Katrina had felt out of place in her own home.
“You don’t know what it’s like to have feelings.” It was an accusation both Mollie and Eliza had hurled at her regularly when, in the middle of one of their many crises, she would be forced to step in and deal with the practicalities. Let down time and time again by their sole parent, each twin had developed different coping strategies.
Eliza had done everything she could t
o please her mother. Katrina, on the other hand, had learned how to stand on her own two feet around the time she was studying her letters and numbers.
No matter how hard Katrina and her grandparents had tried, Eliza had taken the same route as her mother, spiraling into a life of addiction that started with alcohol and quickly progressed to drugs. Even Mollie’s death from an overdose at the age of thirty hadn’t halted her younger daughter’s decline. Katrina had continued to care for Eliza as best she could. As they grew older, and Eliza became increasingly resentful of any interference in her life, it had gotten harder. It hadn’t stopped Katrina from trying.
She had built up her own defenses. She’d put her head down and learned to blunt the noise and confusion of her home life with work and study. Her love of dogs had become her profession and her escape route. When colleagues commented that she was a workaholic, she knew she’d developed her own kind of addiction. It was just as intense as her mother’s, but not as destructive. It had also become the way she kept the rest of the world at arm’s length.
Go on a date? Sorry, I have to take care of the dogs. Meet friends? I have a training course to attend. Go away for the weekend? But who would take care of the business?
